How Do You Spell Rude? JFK TSA

Does anyone out there know the name of the tall TSA management type at JFK’s Terminal A? Wednesday, April 30th he was working at 2:30 PM wearing a beige cotton/poly blend suit. The tall balding dude has dirty blonde hair and a yucky beard. His vocabulary is limited to, move, move it, move it along, faster, move it along faster.

Notice how he is able to use the same few words in a variety of ways – Mensa candidate NOT. He only was capable of one volume – SCREAM.

We were in the crowded security check point with about a couple of hundred other travelers. All of us schlepping a carryon, briefcases, purses and assorted sports gear. There were quite a few families with kids. The moron manager treated each of us equally – he screamed and bellowed. People obeyed – like mice on a wheel – the louder he yelled the faster we moved. The LOUDER he YELLED the more he incited his TSA team to yell and whip us along.

Yo, dude, having a bad day? Take a Xanax. How about a please instead of a bellow. Do you get a bonus based on how many of the tired and poor you can push through the line in ten minutes?

I looked around for the cameras. Was this a sick reality show? Do you get a prize for taking your computer out the fastest? How much do you win for a quick coat and belt strip? Unearth your bag of liquids and toss it to win what ever is on the other side of the X-Ray machine! Get both your shoes on the conveyor belt in less than 3 seconds and the applause will be deafening.

It takes a lot for this seasoned traveller to get so upset that I literally started to cry and I gotta say it sucked. Knowing that the TSA could keep me off the flight to Rome or worse put me on a forever watched list, I kept my mouth shut as I was being screamed at generally by the manager and personally by the employee on my line.

I carry a C-pap machine – normally squirreled away in my luggage but since we are going to be in Italy for 6 months and I needed all the space in my two bags for clothes and stuff I decided to carry my medical device. Well, I wasn’t fast enough taking off my slip on shoes, my coat caught on my arm, my expensive Mac book was whisked out of sight past the X-ray machine and then the woman in charge of my line screamed, “whats in that extra carryon?” A C-pap machine, I replied, a medical device. I can carry my medical device. (No where is it posted a C-pap has to be out of its special bag.) Take it out – NOW. She practically tore it from me – me thinking shit what does it cost for a new one. I’m, sure insurance doesn’t replace one squished on a TSA conver belt.

Meanwhile the shrieking “faster, move it, move it along”, continued to fill the air. I was raced through the “human stare at my undies machine”, got to the other side and saw my stuff rammed up against and under other people’s stuff. Grabbing my stuff, as I was not so politely urged to move along, I limped to a free spot on the ground and got put back together.

My phone rang, it was Jack, he didn’t know what happened to me and couldn’t see me siting on the floor teary eyed. We had been pushed into separate lines.

The manager cretin was still screaming.

Who the hell is this asshole? If you know, let me know so that when I write my letter I can point a real finger of shame.

In Rome, we were transferring to a flight to Naples. We went through the crowded Pre-flight Security lines and were smiled at, chatted with and never once screamed at. The officer on my line did take my folding cane off the conveyor belt and use it as a telescope. It made the kids behind me laugh.

What a difference!